Blind patients 'should be given man-made eye implants to restore their sight'

More patients who have been left blind after damage to their corneas could be helped with artificial eye implants, according to a leading expert

Ophthalmologist Sheraz Daya has called for patients whose sight has not improved through either transplants or stem cell treatment to be made eligible for the procedure.

Keratoprosthesis is a surgical procedure where a severely damaged cornea is replaced with an artificial cornea.

Now new breakthroughs in the treatment including better use of antibiotics to treat infection in the eye has made it a better option for hundreds more patients, experts believe/

Dr May Griffith, who helped develop the artificial corneas, inspects a biosynthetic cornea that can be implanted into the eye to repair damage and restore sight

The use of an artificial cornea is better than a donor transplant as patients do not have to take immune-suppressant drugs to help their bodies accept the new corneas, says Dr Daya.

He told the Times: 'If the patient is in their eighties and is going to struggle to tolerate immune suppression, we can give them a real quality of life with kerato-prosthesis now.

‘Why put them through immune-suppressants for three or four years which might actually be the duration of their lifespan?’

The artificial corneas use a donated natural cornea which is fitted with a synthetic cornea in the centre. This is attached to a back plate which keeps the lens centred.

Even if the body rejects the donor cornea the synthetic centre should remain clear.

Scientists have also developed a glaucoma tube-valve placed with the eye to monitor the optic nerve and reduce pressure in the eye.

Around 3,000 transplants are carried out in the UK each year but
hundreds more could have benefited from the surgery.

A keratoprosthsis procedure can cost as much as £3,000 but Dr Daya
says that this should be within reach for the NHS.

More than 1.5million people go blind each year because they cannot have corneal transplants.

Damage to the cornea, the collagen-based transparent outermost layer of the eye, is one of the most common causes of blindness. It affects ten million people around the world and can be caused by genetics, surgery, burns, infection or chemotherapy.

Implantation of a biosynthetic cornea in a patient with advanced keratoconus

Previous attempts to develop synthetic implants have had
limited success. To create an implant that is as close as the real
thing as possible, the North American and Swedish researchers grew a
synthetic form of human collagen in the lab and moulded it into
wafer-thin button-like shapes.

Ten men and women with corneal disease had the damaged tissue
scraped away from the surface of the eye and replaced with a man-made
cornea in a half-hour operation.

Over time, the patients were able to blink and cry and the nerves severed by the surgery mended.

Fitted with contact lenses, the patients were able to see as
well as people who had conventional corneal transplants, the journal
Science Translational Medicine reported in August.

Two years after the op, the
lab- grown corneas were still working well.

Workers produce artificial crystalline lens and eye cornea at the factory of the Eye Microsurgery Complex

Barbara McLaughlan, of the Royal National Institute of Blind
People, said: 'This is potentially an exciting new development for
patients with corneal blindness where currently transplant from a human
donor is the only treatment opt ion available.

'The first results of this small scale trial in humans seem
very encouraging, however more research is needed to determine if this
could work for all types of corneal blindness and become a widely
available treatment.

'RNIB is committed to reducing the number of people who lose
their sight unnecessarily, and will follow developments in the hope
that the potential of biosynthetic corneas to save sight can be
realised.'